Ryymun Ale

[brew]

OK - so I wanted to do a Munich / Rye based beer... I'm struggling with what hops to use. I have some Challenger I've been wanting to try (thanks Kyle), but I also hear great things about Saaz with Pilsen malt - does this look weird?

7.00 pounds Bohemian Pilsen Malt
2.00 pounds German Light Munich Malt
0.50 pounds German CaraMunich Malt I
0.25 pounds German Carafa I
2.00 pounds German Rye Malt

0.5 Challenger @ 60 min
1.5 Saaz leaf @ 5 min

Mash 60 min @ 150F
Sparge 15 min @ 168

[Kyle]

Sounds interesting.

The challenger will give that spicy character like in my stout, and the saaz will give a floral aroma. I'd say go for it. The specialty malts will probably drown out any unique characteristics of the Pils malt, but thats still ok. The fruity esters of the S-04 yeast would probabably be a good plan for this beer.

[brew]

Cool - thanks Kyle - yeah I think I'll try the S04...

[Brian_S]

You'll probably want to increase the boil to a 90 mins hard boil as the Pilsner malt is notorious for DMS in shorter boils.  

Do you happen to have any Vienna?  I ask as if you swapped the Pilsner for Vienna you'd get something very Oktoberfest like.

B

[Kyle]

He's using the Weyerman Pils (I think). I've done a half dozen brews with that which were only 45 minutes with no problems.

[brew]

Yes Kyle that's right - although this one is the Bohemian Pilsner - the spec sheet is a little better than the regular pilsner malt - not sure if it will translate into anything noticable - but my palate is not very educated anyway...

Vienna - sounds interesting - I'm learning a lot about this now - apparently Munich can be used as a base malt as well. From what I've read, Vienna is somewhere in between 2 row and Munich... although the HBT wiki describes Vienna as more biscuit while the Munich is described as more malty / sweet - which is what I was after. Of course this is my first time with Munich, so I held it back to under 20% and added the body with Caramunich and the Carafa for some umph... throwing darts blind basically   I've never been able to identify Saaz or Challenger flavors either, so this will be a learning experience - hope it doesn't turn out horribly...

[brew]

Did this up today - I used 6 pounds of pilsner instead of 7, and .75 oz of Challenger and .75 oz of Saaz - smells good so far...